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Bennett, Arnold, 1867-1931

"English Prose A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice"

Yet it is not as a sayer of particular good
things that Athelred is most to be regarded, rather as the stalwart
woodman of thought. I have pulled on a light cord often enough, while he
has been wielding the broad-axe; and between us, on this unequal,
division, many a specious fallacy has fallen. I have known him to battle
the same question night after night for years, keeping it in the reign
of talk, constantly applying it and re-applying it to life with humorous
or grave intention, and all the while, never hurrying, nor flagging, nor
taking an unfair advantage of the facts. Jack at a given moment, when
arising, as it were, from the tripod, can be more radiantly just to
those from whom he differs; but then the tenor of his thoughts is even
calumnious; while Athelred, slower to forge excuses, is yet slower to
condemn, and sits over the welter of the world, vacillating but still
judicial, and still faithfully contending with his doubts.
Both the last talkers deal much in points of conduct and religion
studied in the "dry light" of prose.


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